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Swap your ‘yoyo’ diet technique for real results
We all know the “YoYo” approach to losing weight…
You spend a few weeks cutting out this or substituting that, counting every calorie. And quite often, the weight comes off and you revert back to “normal.”
But after a time, the weight comes back and once again you’re trying a different program. Thus, the definition of the “yo-yo diet.” Because these dramatic approaches generally don’t help in the long run, people often assume that nothing will work.
We often think of a diet as a special, temporary effort to help us lose extra pounds. Part of the problem is our choice of definitions, so let’s reshuffle that a bit…
A diet is how we eat, period. Rather than a temporary regime, a diet should be a long-term effort to improve our food habits. You might find that a shift in attitude from weight loss at all costs, to a focus on longer term goals of improving your metabolism, getting a handle on keeping your blood sugar well regulated, and reducing inflammation and toxin load, will give you a better outcome all round.
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Some key goals
- Provide proper nourishment including healthy choices and amounts of protein, fats and complex carbs, as well as essential minerals and vitamins by making wise choices in the vegetable, fruit and grain department.
- Support healthy metabolism and blood sugar control by choosing foods that don’t spike blood sugar and keep us cruising in-between meals with a good energy level, mental clarity and free of cravings.
- Keep inflammation at bay with good dietary choices, moderate exercise and stress reduction practices.
Incorporate compounds that help your body rid itself of toxins and heavy metals.
But what about those cravings?
One of the barriers to eating a healthy diet is the craving for unhealthy foods. Unfortunately, what we eat perpetuates these cravings…
Processed snack foods often have a high glycemic index, which means the body converts the food to glucose very quickly. Blood sugar spikes and then abruptly crashes, leading to more cravings and problems with metabolism.
Fortunately, with a little effort, we can retrain the body to hunger for healthier items by eating foods that balance and sustain our blood sugar throughout the day. Processed foods are often high in both fat and salt, both items which our bodies need in moderation, but are concentrated in snack foods which often use unhealthy types of fats and excess salt.
Enter “Glycemic Index” and “Glycemic Load”
The glycemic index is a rating of how quickly particular food releases glucose into your bloodstream. Foods low on the glycemic index (GI) scale tend to release glucose slowly and steadily. Foods high on the glycemic index release glucose rapidly.
But the glycemic index of foods tells only part of the story. The glycemic load takes into account the actual serving size — how many grams of carbohydrate are in each serving. So for example let’s take watermelon, which has a high glycemic index of 80 on a scale of 1-100. But a 6 gram serving of watermelon has very little carbohydrate (6 grams) so its glycemic load is only 5. Harvard University has an excellent chart of 100 foods to help guide your choices.
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Let’s talk about inflammation and weight
Inflammation is now proven to be a pervasive common denominator of most chronic conditions, including accelerated aging, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease and neurodegenerative conditions.
Fat cells themselves are inflammatory and produce multiple chemical signaling molecules and hormones that further fuel inflammation. Recent research has shown that the rogue protein, Galectin-3 (Gal-3), is a major promotor of inflammation in the body and orchestrates many damaging effects of chronic inflammation.
A recent study found some very fascinating results. In this study of rats fed a high fat diet, the fat tissue of these obese animals showed an increase in Gal-3 levels with higher adipose tissue inflammation, contributing to metabolic alterations associated with obesity. Rats treated with modified citrus pectin, a natural inhibitor of the Gal-3 protein, in their drinking water were spared from these negative effects. Elevated Galectin-3 is also associated with insulin resistance, which eventually leads to the development of Type II Diabetes.
Clearly there is more to understanding weight and obesity than our usual efforts to count calories and modified citrus pectin can provide a new approach to addressing these complex issues.
Pectasol-C® is the only well-researched form of modified citrus pectin available, derived from the inner peel of citrus fruits, and has been formulated to exact specifications to be highly absorbed into the circulation for systemic benefits. Other forms of citrus pectin have larger molecules that are unable to cross the intestinal barrier. This special form of citrus pectin has also been shown to remove toxins and heavy metals from the circulation, helping keep the body clear of these toxins which are so pervasive in our environment and food supply.
PectaClear®, a formulation I recommend to my patients, combines modified citrus pectin and alginates from seaweed is a gentle yet powerful toxin binder which catches toxins in the intestine before they have a chance to get absorbed (alginate action), and binds to toxins that have already gained entry (MCP action). Since toxins and heavy metals are often stored in fat cells, any program aimed to shed some pounds needs to take into account the release of toxins that will accompany weight loss.
This is a novel and welcome addition to the traditional approach to weight loss, taking into account the newest research on fat physiology, and when combined with a low-glycemic diet, nutrient rich food choices, exercise and stress reduction, can give us new tools — an exciting time for all of us who struggle with weight and metabolism issues.
By Dr. Isaac Eliaz
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